Emma Banks, co-head of CAA UK, has told Music Week that the live industry “needs to stop being obsessed with how fast tickets sell” if secondary ticketing is ever to be beaten.

Banks, who stars on the cover of our latest edition, suggested that the business should accept a slower rate of sale in order to stamp out scalping.

“A slower rate of sale is a positive thing,” Banks said. “If you want to try and get rid of the big, problematic scalping, you have to spend more money on advertising and accept a slower rate of sale. It’s really important that people do that.”

Asked directly for her standpoint on secondary ticketing – which continues to create headlines both in the music business and in Government – the super-agent said, “It’s just not a good thing. It’s not right, it’s not fair.”

“It’s capitalism clearly, and we live in a society that believes capitalism is right. And I’m a fan of capitalism, don’t get me wrong,” Banks continued. “But when you’re buying something so finite and there’s not an option to go to another day, I’m not a huge fan of it. There was something much more honest about a geezer in a raincoat going, ‘Buy or sell’.”

A slower rate of sale is a positive thing

Emma Banks, CAA

Banks said agents can only do so much as “we work for the artist and it’s up to the artist how strongly they feel about it,” but she insisted that the industry must “stop being obsessed with how fast tickets sell.”

Banks, whose roster includes Red Hot Chili Peppers, Katy Perry, Kylie Minogue and Marilyn Manson, will become the first female exec to win the MITs Award next month.

She said that the “big news stories” centring on “‘tickets selling out in four minutes" means "scalpers bought all the tickets”.

“It’s just not possible to legitimately sell that amount of tickets in arenas or stadia, in that amount of time,” Banks said. “The pressure is on, you go on sale at 10am and at 10.15 you’re getting emails going, ‘Have we sold out?’ Well, no, because we took a route that is going to take longer because you don’t want to be scalped.”